Fraser Minten lifts Bruins to 3-2 overtime win over Canucks

Steve Conroy, Boston Herald on Jan 4, 2026

Published in Hockey

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Now that’s a homecoming.

Rookie Fraser Minten, playing his first game in his hometown of Vancouver as an NHLer, scored his second goal of the game with 19 seconds left in overtime to lift the Bruins to a 3-2 victory over the Canucks.

With the B’s outshot 27-13 in the second and third periods as they took six penalties on the night, Jeremy Swayman continued to make a case for himself for Olympic playing time with a 31-save performance, including a couple of 10-bell ones while the B’s were killing penalties.

Swayman helped his team get to the extra session, in which the B’s possessed the puck most of the time. Just when it looked like the teams would be going to a shootout against the Canucks again, Minten shoveled home a rebound of David Pastrnak shot that goalie Kevin Lankinen could not control. The unusually mature Minten looked very much like the 21-year-old kid he is as he erupted in celebration.

The B’s took a 1-0 lead into the first break on Minten’s first goal.

They started well and created several Grade A chances in the first six minutes. First Morgan Geekie, who went into the game with a season-long five-game goal-less streak, stole the puck down low and clanged the post next to Lankinen. Then Minten sprung Pastrnak for a clean breakaway but he couldn’t slip his backhander through Lankinen’s pads. Lankinen also stoned Geekie on a 2-on-1.

But the B’s cashed in on the power play late in the period when defenseman Elias Pettersson was called for two minors in the same sequence, first a high-stick on Pastrnak and then a trip on Pavel Zacha on the delayed call.

The B’s scored on the first penalty at 17:24. Minten, the Vancouver homeboy who had 50-100 friends and family in the Rogers Arena crowd, was playing the bumper and he took an Alex Steeves feed, got into shooting position, turned and snapped his seventh of the year past Lankinen.

“I look at him on the bench asked ‘How good did that one feel?’ Everyone knows what it’s like playing in your hometown,” Steeves told NESN.

The B’s still had another full power play but it was negated halfway through by a Viktor Arvidsson slash.

It took the Canucks just 48 seconds to even it up in the second. From the right point, Filip Hronek sent a pass to the other Elias Pettersson, the centerman, and the puck took a fortuitous bounce off Pettersson’s skate, sending it between the pads of an upright Swayman.

But the B’s were able to regain the lead at 7:25 on another power play. With Max Sasson in the box for a dangerous crosscheck from behind on Casey Mittelstadt, Pastrnak scored his 18th of the year. He had Elias Lindholm at the top of the crease, but Pastrnak’s pass attempt went off a Canuck and in.

The B’s maddening habit of taking too many penalties final nipped them at 18:44 of the second. Hampus Lindolm was called for holding behind the B’s net, their fifth of the night and fourth of the period. On the PP, Hronek took the puck deep and his centering pass appeared to go off Charlie McAvoy’s skate and in.